Over the past 4 years of having this channel, I’ve encountered a ton of
folks who are confused by the rights to adapting Tolkien’s works. And honestly,
it’s totally understandable - they’re a bit of a mess. So today, I’m going to break it all down,
giving you a bit of the history, but primarily focusing on how the rights stand
today. By the end, you should hopefully have an understanding on who can adapt what - and
gain an understanding for which projects are most likely to happen in the near future.
A quick note, just to be clear, I’m not any kind of copyright lawyer and
haven’t seen any actual contracts or anything like
that. There may be nuances or elements to the rights that aren’t mentioned here,
but this is a pretty thorough account of the things that are publicly known in the fandom.
Obviously, the starting point for all rights relating to Tolkien’s works would be with
Tolkien himself. And this indeed was the case after The Hobbit and the Lord of the
Rings were published. However, in 1969, Tolkien would sell rights to his published
Middle-earth books to American film studio United Artists. Tolkien was paid a reported
$250,000 US Dollars for the rights - which is somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 Million
in today’s dollars. It’s also worth noting that Tolkien, and by extension his Estate,
would be owed a 7.5% royalty interest in any future adaptations of these works. These rights
cover film, stage, gaming, and merchandise for both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
United Artist would ironically never produce a film based in Middle-earth,
having abandoned the infamous Boorman project from 1970. Instead, they would sell most of their
rights to the Saul Zaentz Company in 1976. Saul Zaentz would then form Tolkien Enterprises,
later renamed Middle-earth Enterprises, to manage their Middle-earth licenses. With these rights,
we would end up with the three animated films - The Rankin/Bass Hobbit,
Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings, and Rankin/Bass Return of the King.
These very film rights would also result in the Peter Jackson trilogies of The Lord of
the Rings and The Hobbit. However - there is one small quirk with the latter. Fans
may recall that an additional studio was involved in The Hobbit - MGM. Remember
when I said United Artists sold MOST of their rights to Saul Zaentz? Well, it turns out they
held onto the distribution rights to The Hobbit - believing it to be the most likely to be adapted.
Therefore, when it came time for New Line Cinema (under Warner Brothers) to embark on The Hobbit
trilogy, they had the rights to produce the films, but NOT to distribute - aka - release
said films. Therefore, MGM (who owned United Artists) had to be brought into the fray.
Of course, films are just one form of adaptation that we’ve seen over the decades since Tolkien
sold these rights. We’ve seen stage adaptations, video games, and merchandise - all of which has
been licensed through Middle-earth Enterprises. In 2022, Middle-earth Enterprises was bought
by Embracer Group for $395 Million, where it continues to operate as a division of the company.
So in a nutshell, nearly every adaptation you’ve seen when it comes to The Hobbit
and The Lord of the Rings (including the latter’s appendices), comes as a result of
these rights originally sold by JRR Tolkien himself in 1969. The Peter Jackson films,
the animated films, Shadow of Mordor, War in the North, Return to Moria, The One Ring RPG,
the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, The Lord of the Rings Online - you name it,
it’s almost certainly come through these rights. And that’s not even including other general
merchandise - like the King’s Wild Card Decks, Drop Keyboards, Hobbiton Movie Set, Weta merch,
all kinds of things - you can actually find a list of licensees on their website if you’re curious.
A huge key to these rights as Tolkien sold them is that they are in perpetuity - meaning
these rights will never revert back to Tolkien’s Estate. They will stay with Embracer/Middle-earth
Enterprises unless the rights or the company itself is sold. Spider-man fans will note this
is quite different to the Sony rights, which dictate that Sony must churn out
a Spider-Man-related film at least once every 5.75 years - otherwise the rights revert back
to Marvel. Which is why the reboots have come so frequently - they have to keep pumping out
movies to maintain those rights. Thankfully, that is not the case when it comes to Middle-earth.
Now, this pretty well covers one half of the pie that makes up Middle-earth rights as a whole. The
other main player is, and has always been, the Tolkien Estate. For those unfamiliar, this is
the legal body made of Tolkien’s descendants and family who manage all copyrights over his literary
works. So what does the Tolkien Estate own? First, the easy part - when it comes to Middle-earth,
this includes all of the books Christopher Tolkien edited and published - The Silmarillion,
Unfinished Tales, the entire 12-volume History of Middle-earth series, Beren & Luthien,
The Children of Hurin, and The Fall of Gondolin. It also includes The Nature of Middle-earth,
edited by Carl Hostetter and The Fall of Numenor, edited by Brian Sibley.
And while we covered extensively all the rights Embracer now owns for The Hobbit and The Lord
of the Rings, there is one key item that they do not - TV Rights. TV Rights were not part of
those original rights sold by JRR Tolkien, so the Estate held these until 2017 when Amazon secured
the rights to develop a reported 5-season tv series, with potential for spin-offs. This
of course would become The Rings of Power series. These rights would reportedly cost Amazon close to
$250 Million, giving Amazon access to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings (and its appendices).
Obviously, this makes the original price of $2 Million for film, stage, gaming,
and merchandise rights look like quite the bargain. But here’s where it gets even more
interesting. Over the past couple years, I’ve seen a number of people convey their surprise
that we’ve seen no merchandise when it comes to The Rings of Power. I myself would love a
replica two trees dagger. However, while I’m no lawyer and do not personally know all the
intricacies of these contracts - it would appear that Amazon cannot sell merchandise for their
show without partnering with Middle-earth Enterprises because, as we stated earlier,
they own merchandise rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
When it comes to Rings of Power, there is another disclaimer needed. It’s also been
reported from the showrunners and studio, that they are able to request permission
to use things beyond The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on a case-by-case basis. Case in
point - deep-diving fans noticed that the maps released for the show included things like the
star-shaped Numenor and specific location names that only appear in the pages of Unfinished Tales.
Over the months and years, I’ve seen all kinds of comments about adapting stories
from The Silmarillion. Indeed, as recently as my interview with Philippa Boyens,
I was getting comments from folks thinking we were alluding to a
potential The Children of Hurin when mentioning other types of dragons.
As much as I would LOVE to see a Children of Hurin adaptation, that is not in the cards
with the rights that are currently on the table. This adaptation rights to this book,
like the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle-earth etc lie firmly with The Tolkien
Estate. And will not be adapted until such a time as the Estate chooses to license them.
Personally, I hope that day does come. Seeing these stories brought to life - and adapted
well of course - would be an absolute dream come true. And while I understand fan fears
of these tales being adapted poorly, I’ve always been of the mindset that
you can’t get great adaptations if you don’t have any adaptations being made.
In the meantime, we’ll see future projects coming from both sides of
this diagram - future episodes of Rings of Power on one side,
and future films like The War of the Rohirrim and the three films being planned at Warner Brothers.
This has been a pretty broad overview of the rights situation when it comes to
Middle-earth. And it’s worth noting that it’s far from comprehensive in terms of
all the rights. For example, while Middle-earth owns the film rights,
Warner Brothers/New Line Cinema owns the rights to their adaptations themselves. Want to make
a board game featuring Ian McKellen’s version of Gandalf - you’ll need Warner
Brothers for that. This means there’s a lot of connections within the wide web of rights.
For instance, Games Workshop - makers of The Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game have both a
license through Warner Brothers, allowing them to adapt things as featured in the films, but
also a license through Middle-earth Enterprises - meaning they can adapt from the text. This results
in some cool mashups like seeing Smaug or Elrond as they appear in the films, but rounding out the
world by also featuring Elrond’s sons Elladan and Elrohir who are only found in the books.
Another recent example is the fact that New Line Cinema is listed in
the credits for The Rings of Power. While we may not know the full extent of this,
there smart money is on design elements in the tv series matching the designs in the Peter
Jackson films owned by New Line. Things like the Balrog, Gil-galad’s spear Aeglos, and Elendil’s
future sword Narsil range from very similar to nearly identical to their film counterparts.
While it can sometimes seem like a huge complicated web of rights for the various stories,
books, and types of adaptations, hopefully this guide gives some clarity for those confused. At
the very least, I think this should give you an idea for who would need to be involved for
any given project to come to fruition. Now, I’ll turn the floor over to you - let me know in the
comments what Middle-earth adaptation you’d most like to see - film, tv, game, whatever. And for an
extra credit point, note which rights holders would have to be involved to make it happen!
as always I want to say a huge thank you to all my patreon and YouTube supporters
who make this channel possible Tom de Bombadil 19 list me the Cinda Rabbi Rob Thomas Charles
Leisure CCDC red team Joe teer the mighty MIM Andrew Carlile World traveler Matthew
Jeffrey Viking Lord Leo vitori Sky carcass slide belts danne Ragnar Berto Berg Graham
derot the darkhaired one wiland Michael woo and Debbie if you enjoyed the artwork in this video
check out the artists in the description to purchase prints of their great work
for yourself thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time on nerd of the Rings